In Step with Amanda Van Lanen: ‘Big Apples, Big Business: How Washington Became the Apple State’
- RHSociety
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
By Richard Hao, Youth Director At Large
Edited by Laura Lee Bennett, Executive Vice President
On April 12th, 2025 at 10:30 am at the Old Redmond Schoolhouse, the Redmond Historical Society welcomes Amana Van Landen, Professor of History, Lewis-Clark State College. She will bring “Big Apples, Big Business: How Washington Became the Apple State” to the Saturday Speaker Series. Dr. Van Lanen is speaking courtesy of Humanities Washington.
We caught up with Amanda for a bit of Q&A.
RHS: What first sparked your passion and interest in researching history?
Amanda: When I was a kid, one of the things my family did for fun was go to historical locations and museums and battlefields. So, from an early age, I was being taken to these places. A particular experience I enjoyed was visiting my mom’s family in Tennessee. Every time we visited, we would go to all the Civil War battlefields near my grandma's house. We spent a lot of time at those places.
RHS: How do you search for new stories or historical research topics? Do they just fall out of a tree?
Amanda: It helps to be a curious person. Anytime I watch something or read something, I'm always thinking of questions, and some of those don't go anywhere. Just do a little research! And you don't always find a lot of information. In the case of apples, I was first interested in water rights in the West because on my other side, my grandma lived in Arizona and we’d go visit her, and as a kid it always perplexed me that while she lived in the middle of the desert, everybody had swimming pools! It never made any sense!
So that's where I started with my master's degree, looking at irrigation in Washington State in particular. Then, when I went on to my dissertation, I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do. Coincidentally, I had a conversation with one of my professors, and he asked, “What did they grow on all those irrigated acres?” That sparked my curiosity, and I started down the path of looking at apples.
RHS: So, it’s sort of a positive “rabbit hole”?
Amanda: Exactly! You get more into it, and then you finally find a topic that is really interesting.
RHS: What key aspects of the Washington apple industry’s evolution do you find most fascinating?
Amanda: A lot of the research I did was with the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railroad papers at the Minnesota State Historical Society. The railroad saved everything! Often when you're doing historical research, you only get one side of the correspondence. Maybe one letter here or there, and you don't know what the person said in reply. The railroads had whole chains of correspondence where you could see what they wrote and the reply they got. It was all right there. That, to me, was both special and fascinating, because that's not something you often find as a historian.
RHS: What is the most intriguing fact you uncovered during your research―something you would’ve never thought of?
Amanda: When I was a kid, I loved the musical Annie. There's a song where she's singing about apple sellers on the streets of New York. So, I knew about apple sellers. I knew that this was something during the Depression. At one point in my research, I came across documents that discussed setting up street vendors during that first year of the Depression. And I got really excited! It was incredible.
RHS: As climate change and other environmental issues become more prominent, how do you see the future of Washington’s apple industry evolving? What changes are likely to take place in response to such an environmental transformation?
Amanda: Washington State University has a tree research farm in Central Washington that’s been there since 1937, and they're very concerned about that. In Central Washington, our summers are getting hotter. We have more days over 100 degrees than we have had historically, so they're looking at things like different types of root stock, or varieties of apple, that can withstand the heat and climate pressure. Shading the trees sometimes to keep the sun off of them on those hottest days is another strategy.
RHS: Is apple farming in Washington a largely competitive business with corporation-funded farms, or does it mostly consist of family-owned orchards?
Amanda: It's a mix. There are still a number of family farms. In fact, some families have been doing this since the very beginning of the apple industry in Washington. They're still there, and they're still doing it.
RHS: What’s your favorite fruit?
Amanda: Mangoes. I grew up in Saipan, and we had a mango tree in our front yard. So, I grew up getting really good mangoes. I didn't grow up eating apples. Apples are definitely in my top three, though.
RHS: Where can you buy the best apples?
Amanda: If you’ve got a farmers' market or a local orchard near your house, that’s your best bet!